Joshua Gayou - Commune - Book One

“So what do you guys see in here?” asked Billy.

“How much did this place cost, anyway?” asked Lizzy, looking around the room. The outburst was a bit embarrassing, and I may have given her a swat on the shoulder.

“That’s… that’s actually not what I meant,” said Billy. “Take a close look at some of these titles.”

Jake went over to one of the shelves and started browsing through the books. He stared at the spine of one for several seconds, his mouth working silently, and then said, “I’ll be…”

“What is it?” I asked. He waved me over and pointed at a row of books. I started to read the titles out loud. “Bushcraft 1… How to Stay Alive in the Woods… Build the Perfect Bug Out Bag… Survival Medicine Handbook. Holy crap, all of this is about survival?”

“No,” said Billy. “Just that section. I’ve been collecting for years now. How-to guides, manuals, references. This stuff covers everything from electrical repair to engine rebuilding. There are books on tanning animal hide—hell, several books on processing the whole damned animal. One of those even tells you how to make glue out of animal hide. There are books on subsistence farming, carpentry, welding. I even have guides on primitive blacksmithing. I’m not saying I thought of everything, of course, but this is a good start. Anything we discover that needs to be done; there’s a good chance I’ve put a book in here that will give us some ideas.”

“Is all of this just a bunch of reference material?” Jake asked. “Don’t you have anything that you read for pleasure?”

“Oh, sure,” Billy said. “Those two sections there behind the desk are loaded with novels. Also on the other side of the window are a lot of classics and antiques. Here, look,” he said, walking over to a shelf to the right of the desk. He tipped out a book about four inches thick. “See? The Iliad.”

“Oh, man. I think that’s a little heavy for me,” Jake said while patting his legs lightly.

“You should read this sometime, Jake,” said Billy. He sounded serious enough that we both looked at him intently. “I mean it. It’s very good.”

“Okay, okay,” said Jake. He sounded as confused as I felt at Billy’s sincerity. “I’ll see if I can plow through it sometime. Might take me a while. I tend to be a bit of a slow reader.”

“Who’s this in the picture with you, Billy?” asked Lizzy. She was pointing to one in a series of framed pictures on the fireplace mantle. “He looks familiar.”

“Hey, wow!” I said, coming closer to look. “When did you meet Arnold?”

“That was back when he was the governor. Had to meet with him to discuss taxes at the time. He was going around running his mouth over how all the tribes needed to ‘pay their fair share’ in state taxes. Obviously, the state government had spent itself into a giant hole, so the clear answer was to go after small, deep-pocketed groups with little comparative clout to make up the difference on their stupidity. Damned clown.”

“Why do you have a picture with him if he was such a buffoon?” Jake asked with a subtle grin.

“Well… I mean… the guy was still Conan, after all.”

“I thought his name was Arnold,” said Lizzy.

“Never mind, Mija.”

“Anyway,” Billy said, resetting our attention, “with Google and Wikipedia being nothing but a forlorn memory, this is what we have now.” He made his way toward the doorway. “You guys make yourselves at home. Pick the bedrooms you want and such—just stay away from the one on the left upstairs; that’s mine. Once you get it all figured out, you can come help me unload the cars.”

Jake looked over at us. “Okay, then. Either of you prefer upstairs? I don’t care either way.”

“Can I have the room with the bunk beds?” asked Elizabeth.

Jake smiled at her. “I’m good with it if your mom is.”

“You…you go ahead, Mija.”

“Hey,” said Jake as Lizzy bounded out of the room. “You okay? What’s up?”

I cleared my throat and shook my head. “It was just something Eddie used to say. Whenever Elizabeth asked permission on things—if he didn’t mind he would always check with me first to be sure. He would say ‘If Mom’s happy, I’m good.’ It was just a shock to hear it.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jake.

I was a moment answering, lost in my own thought. Finally, I said, “Don’t be. We can’t all be walking on eggshells around here. This just happens from time to time. I was just doing some math in my head there. It feels like ages, but I only lost him like three or four months ago now? I honestly don’t know for sure. Most of the time I’m numb to it or I’m too busy dealing with a problem in the moment. Every so often, though, something unexpected jumps out and reminds me how badly I miss him.”

“Yeah,” Jake agreed. He took a deep breath; let it out. “I’ll take the upstairs room,” he said as he walked to the door. “I suppose you’ll want to be close to your daughter. I’ll go give Billy a hand unloading.”

His voice trailed off as he walked down the hallway toward the front of the cabin. I felt as though he had escaped from the room.

I left the den and followed his path, stopping at the first door on the left to look in on Elizabeth. She was sitting on the top bunk in the center of the room (there were six bunks throughout—two on the left wall, two in the center, and two on the right wall) dangling her feet off the side. “What do you think?” I asked her.

“This is great!” she said with a smile that nearly cracked her face in half.

“You just be careful up there, okay? Don’t fall off.”

“I won’t, Mom,” she called after me as I walked down to the next bedroom and looked in. The décor of the room was very much in line with the rest of the house with rich wood furniture and earth tones in all of the coloring. There was a queen sized bed on the left wall with a lovely Native American painting of some women sitting together at a river bank; they appeared to be making baskets or pottery—it was hard to tell because it was a stylized piece. On the wall opposite of the painting hung a Jackalope head mounted on a board. It was obvious that Billy had done all of his own decorating.

I exited the front of the cabin to find some of the plastic bins from the truck already stacked outside the door. Worried that they might finish unpacking without me, I rushed down the steps and trotted around the side of the house. They were over by the roll-up door of the Butler Building. I slowed to an energetic walk and joined them.

“I like the bit of taxidermy,” I said to Billy. “You shoot that thing yourself?”

“Oh, you found Jacky,” Billy said absently. He had a key ring out and was thumbing through various keys.

“We were just praying that Billy didn’t leave his garage key back home in California,” said Jake.

“Oh, crap,” I laughed and then looked down at the roll-up door. There was a half-inch thick steel plate on either side of the door at the bottom. These plates appeared to be welded to the wall of the building frame itself. Rather than being secured to the door with some form of padlock or chain, there was a heavy duty keyhole lock embedded in the center of the plate. “Oh, crap!” I repeated. “Can we actually get in there without a key?”

“Not without a torch,” Billy muttered. “Ha! I told you I brought it!” he said, holding the bundle of keys up to Jake’s face with one of them extended out between thumb and forefinger.

He unlocked both sides of the door and then grabbed a handle mounted to the bottom center. He lifted, and the door glided up easily, rolling up some twenty feet overhead. When the door was too high for him to push with his hands, he grabbed a chain to the right of the inside frame and pulled it up a few more feet. He anchored the chain to a metal hook on the wall and walked in.